Monday, March 05, 2007

Malaysian culinary delights to entice Indian tourists

KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia is enticing Indian tourists to her shores withdiverse and unique cuisine through a unique programme - The "MalaysianKitchen".

This innovative programme will see the opening a chain of kitchens inmajor Indian cities that will offer the best of Malaysian cuisine, saidMalaysia Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor at itslaunch in India. He is leading a 50-member delegation are on a salesmission to India until March 3.

Pempena, subsidiary of Tourism Malaysia, has opened the first MalaysianKitchen, "Little Penang" restaurant in Hyderabad.

Tengku Adnan said similar kitchens would be set up in Chennai, Mumbai,New Delhi, Kolkatta and Bangalore in the next few months.

The Malaysian sales mission to India is to promote Visit Malaysia Year2007 as well as niche tourism products such as the "Malaysia My 2ndHome" programme, wedding and honeymoon packages and the meetings,incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) segment.

Malaysia is a popular destination for Indian nationals. Last year279,046 Indian visited Malaysia last year, a 23.5 percent increase from225,789 in 2005.